


A Sort of Science

by TheUsualSuspect



Category: NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Timeline Fic, a lot of my own headcannons went into this, science as metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 17:05:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18554065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUsualSuspect/pseuds/TheUsualSuspect
Summary: When they met; when they were jealous; when they kissed; when they were sure that other forces were at work, when they went away together for Christmas; when they went undercover together.





	A Sort of Science

It is true that every mass on the earth has an attraction to every other mass on the earth, however, depending upon the weight of the mass and the distance between them, the attraction is either stronger or weaker. It is also true that magnets, once together, can be inseparable. The combination of these two forces creates an attraction so intense that they masses cannot help but gravitate towards each other and then exist together, forever. 

\--

There is a place where the ocean meets a bay and a bay meets a beach and a beach meets the sand. Where tourists bake their tan-lines and residents walk their dogs. Where crooked teenagers, mis-spending their youth steal the unguarded phones and sunglasses left by the patrons of the sea. Where broke, pre-college students from Australia teach surf classes. Where, on a quiet day, when the sun is bright and the surf is low, people get married, they set up the whole ceremony marquee in the sand and reception in the water. Where people experienced with glorified Styrofoam and the many loops and curls of the bay, ride, peak, and break in the surf. Today, Eric Beale was one of those straddling their Styrofoam chariot out in the bluer parts of the water, awaiting the perfect crest.

There is a place where the beach meets the stairs and the stairs meet the pavement and the pavement meets the grassy promenade. This is a place where you can hear the commotion of the ocean and its many passengers. Where you can see the on-lookers from the comfort of your picnic rug. Where you can read without the fear of sand burying into your pages or into your eyes. Where food trucks line up to serve a variety of the world’s foods, deep fried with a dressing of preservatives. Today, Nell Jones was one of the patrons of these trucks, as well as being tucked away, resting against a tree with a good book. 

There is a wonder how these two didn’t see each other on this day. Neither crossed into the other realm to venture a guess at its inner workings. Even as Nell came back to walk across the beach that night and Eric lingered in the bar down the street, there was not even a glimpse of each other to be had. Without a glimpse there was no way to judge their future, they had not yet met. 

Although, both Nell and Eric had been near the beach on the same day, the first time they met was when Hetty introduced them.   
“Miss Jones, this is Eric Beale, one of our technical operators,” he gave a small smile to Nell as Hetty continued, “with a very lax interpretation of the dress code.”  
Eric raised his eyebrows in a slightly frustrated motion that made it clear to Nell that this was a common issue.  
“I like to be able to breathe when I work,” he justified, both to Hetty and to Nell.  
“Well if breathing is the problem, could I suggest an oxygen tank?” she pointedly asked, shutting down the option for retort from Eric.   
The whole exchange was an experience for Nell. From Eric’s chosen attire, to the sly, underhanded comments of his boss, who, she reminded herself, was also her new boss. 

Eric just smiled uncomfortably and stared at a point just past Hetty to avoid the full force of her glare.   
“Miss Jones, I am going to have Mr. Beale here give you a rundown of our operating system while I retrieve your clearance.  
“Okay. Thank you, Ms. Lange.”  
Hetty bowed her head in acknowledgement, “and please, it’s Hetty.”  
“Okay.”  
From the brief encounter, Nell had discovered one key element; Hetty could be like a cold, sea breeze; salty with the ability to sting like a bitch. 

Her judgements of Eric were slowly cleared as he began explaining the system that they worked with. It was evident to her that Eric was highly skilled and knowledgeable in his field and began more and more to understand what Hetty meant about hiring the ‘best of the best’. Yet she had the feeling that they weren’t quite clicking. She was also pretty sure she knew why. Sometimes he’d be talking, and she’d butt in, finishing the line and then continuing on to explain and further his point. For the most part she couldn’t help it. He would be speaking and then suddenly she would be speaking. Although this irritated Eric, to no extent when they were working together, it went weeks unaddressed. 

A week later she worked her first case with the team and with the help of Eric managed along quite well, even though she wasn’t quite sure of how she fitted in with everyone. Something that she knew would take time, but she just hoped that nothing on her end prevented a seamless working relationship. She hadn’t really had anytime to rub anyone the wrong way yet, except for her inability to not finish people’s sentences almost had Eric running a spike through her. Eventually, they managed to overcome that. 

 

After this time, she discovered that he was pretty much always saying what was on his mind, sometimes without quite thinking it through, or even just his soliloquy-like muttering. Eric Beale, she discovered, was completely filter-less. Especially when they got onto the topic of movies, arguing over the inner-specifics of Star Wars, including, the correct viewing order, which they agreed: yes, you need to watch the prequels, because they are stellar editions to the franchise, however they, and no additions to the franchise, will beat the original trilogy. There was a click, like the bump of metal as magnets bump together without actually touching. This was a small road bump and they would figure out how to overcome much more in their relationship; professional differences, ‘car problems’, and Eric’s disagreement with words, which ended in him never saying what he meant. Jealousy, however was something that they would never quite understand. 

Early in the next year, Eric had been placed in extreme danger. Hetty had been hesitant to put Eric in the field due to his lack of experience, however, she knew that he was the only person properly equipped for the task and the only way to get experience was to go out into the field. It was not a good day for Eric, between having to wear long pants and almost being frelted, he could count worse days on one hand. It was when he arrived back at Ops though, that she considered for the first time that her feelings extended beyond those of their platonic friend-state within which they currently resided. It was for a second when she caught sight of the way he smiled staring at his computer screen, sitting in his chair. He was content and relieved to be back in Ops and she would’ve sworn she heard him mutter ‘home’ under his breath and in times when she thought about it, she often found a smile on her face. 

There wasn’t a need for her to take-stock of her feelings towards Eric until she saw how the thought of her receiving flowers had a certain “competitive” green-eyed monster arise. This was the first time she was made to consider the possibility of Eric’s feelings towards her. When he said that he wasn’t at all surprised that someone would send her flowers she was forced into reconcilement of her own feelings once again. She knew Eric was a special kind of “off-limits” in the way that they had a budding friendship that neither of them wanted to penalise with any sort of suggestion that there was more between them. Which meant that she was settled on convincing herself to ignore the possible feelings between them. This friendship made them strong, there was support and there was the resistance and suppression of their feelings. Strength evolved when self-control dictated that one mass must force itself away from another. If physics dictated that the closer two masses were to each other, the stronger the attraction was, and if human nature dictated that a bond that strong would move closer to each other, it was evident they were not following the rules. 

It was months later that Nate used his powers of deduction to trick Nell into a realisation of her own emotional falsehood in the area of ‘Eric’. He’d had her tongue-tied, confused and in an attempt of solving her own confusion, coming to the realisation that she consciously thought of Eric as a brother to make up for the fact that subconsciously there was much more depth to him in her own mind. She wasn’t ready to admit to anyone except herself that she’d definitely woken up shaky after she’d dreamt of their lips on each other’s skin. That was a hatchet worthy secret that she wasn’t going to let anyone, even Nate, unearth. 

However, it was these thoughts that traversed through her mind on days when she was incapable to hide her feelings. When she slipped up, or when he slipped up there was always a moment where the veil thinned, where they could feel the attraction pulling them together, but were holding themselves back, too afraid of the implications that their venture into the other would lead to. They were days when they let their walls fall down for the sake of comfort. Usually around the holidays when neither of them could be home and they were stuck in the Ops centre alone. To keep each other company they started the Christmas tradition of always spending time outside of work with each other. It just happened that the first year they tried this, Eric had a blatant refusal to dress up. Nell wanted him to go with her and he had also clearly expressed his intention to go with her, he just was not interested in dressing the part.   
It wasn’t that Eric didn’t want to help Nell with her Christmas plans. It was more so that sometimes when they hung out with each other outside of work or when they were watching a movie at one of their apartments, he would get fidgety and restless. He would have to make himself sit so still to resist the temptation of her exposed neck when she sat tilting her head away from him. If it was a movie that he’d never seen before it’d be less obvious because he became so engaged with the movie that he could forget about the gorgeous woman sitting beside him. Except for the times where she sat throughout a movie quoting the words under her breath and he just sat there, watching her lips move ever so slightly, subconsciously, and he wanted to kiss her. But he couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Wasn’t prepared for her to push him away and break their friendship. This was why he was objecting to the attire of Nell’s event. There was a part of him that knew she would appear irresistible and he didn’t know how he would deal with that. 

However, she clearly used this to her advantage because when she showed up and kissed him. Which at that point he realised he had no idea how to deal with Nell kissing him. Which was the more immediate issue that Eric’s brain that was struggling to comprehend. Her lips had fried his motherboard and rendered him helpless. By the time he’d restored function the moment had passed, and she was looking at the roof. Correction, at the mistletoe hanging from the roof. She also looked like she knew exactly what she was doing. It won him over. It convinced him to go out and spend Christmas with Nell in what would become something of a tradition after that.

Even though they’d finally put it behind them, after Eric stopped spilling it to every friend, barista, and co-worker and Deeks had moved his fish tank out of the office. They both still thought about it from time to time, but it wasn’t something between them that was awkward or elephant like. It just was that one time when Nell kissed him at Christmas to get him into a costume. They blamed it on that and the mistletoe and moved on. 

Mostly.

Each time afterwards that Nell went into the field, Eric felt that he was riding the most fragile wave, one wrong move and he was under. Or more accurately Nell was under. He held his breath and hoped for the best, whilst trying to remind himself that after their kiss nothing had changed. Except that he knew what her lips felt like. And what their bodies felt like that close. And what he hands felt like on his neck. However, whenever, Nell came back from the field (scathed or unscathed) he exercised self- control (as did she, unbeknownst to him) and instead of kissing her, he resorted to a hug, or a well-placed smile. Anymore lips on lips and their feelings would be harder to deny, currently they could excuse the rest of their behaviour and stack it up to the dangerous work they do.   
When Nell came back from the boatshed after being placed watching Robert Brown and them fending off the attack from him, she’d been left a little shaken. As she’d walked back into Ops and back to Eric he said, “I told you. I’m going to stop letting you leave Ops,” he’d reached out to touch the cut on her forehead and for a single moment she thought that he was going to kiss her. He didn’t, but she could see it in his eyes and felt it in the gentle caress of his hand on her face. She wanted him to kiss her. He might have too, if Kensi hadn’t’ve chosen that moment to call in. Moments like that between them were few and far between. Some days it seemed like too much a feat to move these objects closer to each other. Their attraction although strong was rivalled by a much stronger force of their willpower which allowed them to defy physics and human nature.

Christmas was always a joy for Nell and Eric, even as they were deserted in LA away from their families, they often took up the comfort of each other. They had the ultimate line up of Christmas movies, baking, and a whole other surrogate family to celebrate with. However, this was a year when Nell was lucky enough to have time to go back home to see her family. It had been years since she was able to do that so instantly, she jumped at the opportunity. She knew that she would be cancelling all of the plans that were months in the making with Eric, but she also knew he would understand. He didn’t get to go home to see his family at Christmas often, either. She didn’t feel guilty until after she’d bought her plane ticket and by then it was too late. 

It meant that that year Nell brought Eric home to meet her family, under the pretence that they were dating. Neither of them minded, and although they could admit that to themselves, they weren’t quite ready to admit it to each other. Nell’s family were drinking up the fact that they could meet the Eric she’d often spoken of, in the flesh. He was bombarded with questions: siblings: no, parents’ jobs: Dad’s a chef, Mum’s an accountant, where he grew up: Oklahoma, why he moved to LA: the surf (which earned him a laugh). He was unnaturally breezy, just taking every question at face value and pushing through. It was very un-Eric like and Nell selfishly wondered for a moment if it had anything to do with him having his arm around her shoulder. If she was a beam to lean on and draw support from. The only reason she considered this was because she knew that she felt warm that close to him and it felt so natural. 

Between Nell’s mum’s eggnog recipe; which by the end of the night was more rum than cream, and the resulting competitive Wii Sports and Wii Dance games Nell felt completely at home. She was back with her family and they were playing their stupidly competitive games, it was a Christmas done right. When Nell beat her cousin, Mercy at Wii dance for the second time she turned to Nell and said like a challenge, “I want to see blondie do it.”  
“Blondie?” Nell questioned at choice of the nickname.  
“I mean Eric,” she corrected drunkenly, “I have a feeling he’s good at this game. I have a feeling he could beat you.”  
“Alright,” Nell said, “Beale,” she said holding the controller out to Eric, “do you accept the challenge?”  
“Am I one to flee from competition?”   
Nell raised an eyebrow at him, “Which example do you want? Sam’s challenger? The final level of Assassins Creed Brotherhood?”  
He jumped to his defence, “Just because it took me a month to attempt, does not mean I “fled” as you say, from the competition.”  
Nell’s expression remained as she forced him to admit defeat. She placed the controller in his hand.  
“You ready to quit the trash talk and do this?” she asked, lacing her tone with the challenge one final time.  
“Born ready.”

Mercy’s song choice was Summer by Calvin Harris and even though her assumption of Eric’s skill was correct, not even he was equipped with the skill to render Nell the loser.   
“Well that was anti-climactic,” Mercy stated after witnessing Nell win, “I would’ve put money on you, Blondie.”   
Eric was a little disappointed at his defeat, “cheer up Beale, the only person who’s ever beaten me was my brother Lucas and he did that by pushing me over.”  
“Ouch.”  
“Yeah, don’t worry. I pushed back,” she said, before a short yawn escaped her mouth and in a change of pace, she placed a hand on Eric’s chest in an attempt to steady herself, “Okay I think I’m going to call it a night,” she announced to the family that still remained in the lounge room.

When Nell and Eric climbed up the stairs and into their room, she collapsed onto the bed.  
“Christmas is tiring,” she stated.  
“Yeah,” Eric agreed, “and your family has a unique way of celebrating.”  
She sat up onto the pillows, “Really? Having a couple drinks, telling old stories and bombarding the new comers with questions. That’s pretty standard.”  
“But your family is special.”   
Nell sighed, “I miss them when I’m at home.”  
“I know,” he acknowledged, “I miss mine too, most days anyway.” He sat down on the bed next to Nell, nudging her knee with his, “thank you, for letting me spend Christmas with your family.”  
She smiled, turning to face him, “Thank you for coming.”  
“It’s nice to be with a proper family on Christmas, with the old stories and drama and such.” He noticed her smile grow at the words he’s said, “besides, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”  
She looked down at her lap and Eric reached his hand to her cheek, tilting her smile back towards him, “I’ve never seen you this happy at Christmas.”  
Her smile softened as she leant into his touch, “I love our Christmas’ and I love my family, I guess this way I get both,” she was speaking sleepily, “this way I get all my loves on Christmas,” she whispered softly.  
As Eric processed her words, he stayed still making sure she didn’t take it back or excuse it in some way. Instead she wrapped her arms around his neck and climbed into his lap straddling his hips with her legs.  
“You’re a Christmas miracle, Beale,” she spoke leaning in to kiss him.  
Eric met her lips halfway. Their lips fit over one another’s in an embrace of sorts, fuelled by the distance between them for so long. After their taste of it once, they’d both subconsciously willed it into action. His hands in her hair and her mouth on his neck.  
Caught in the moment and slightly inebriated, neither showed any intent of halting or slowing down and regardless of the times that Nell asked Eric if it was “Okay,” and if he was sure, he told him time and time again that he was.   
There wasn’t a doubt in either of their minds and there wouldn’t have been if they were completely sober either. 

Not even in the morning, as Nell awoke to hear Eric in the shower, when she recalled the events of the night before did she regret it: the tangle of sheets, her name on his lips. His lips on her lips. On her neck. On her chest.   
She sunk further into the bundle of covers. No regret, just a deep consideration of the consequences of their actions and what implications it had on their friendship.   
Even as Eric walked out of the bathroom mostly dressed, save for the shirt he hadn’t buttoned up yet, Nell caught a glimpse of a purple hickey-like mark on the bottom of his neck. The appearance of which sent slight tingles that shooting down her spine as she remembered marking him with it.  
Even though they spent the day marching around baring almost matching hickeys, that were thankfully hidden, they agreed that it was a nice one-night stand and that it should stay that way for the sake of their professional relationship. The only question asked was how could two masses that know what it was like to be with each other decide to part again?

They were apart once again, almost defying physics in how they managed to yet again create distance with the attraction between themselves. Not that that night didn’t linger between them, but it was more than two years later when they had both come to accept what had happened and mostly put it in the past, that any remembrance of it was trawled up again.   
Hetty was the catalyst of this upheaval, her actions being the assignment of them undercover and mandating that their aliases were a couple. Most notably, the whole issue with the couple guise was feelings. Both of them had plenty toward the other, but they feared that needing to tap into that storage of emotion might pierce it to an extent where there was not enough duct tape in the world to restore it to what it once was.

Nell was careful in how she accessed her feelings for Eric and how she expressed them physically. If she kissed him on the cheek, she didn’t linger, when she spoke about them as a couple, she tried to make it as removed from the truth as possible. She had her methods in place and kept her insertions of truth small; miniscule even. It was evident to Nell that Eric was using a wildly different variation where he just laid everything out on the table. He played all his truths. The story about how they met, their first kiss, the time he met her parents. All of them true, all of them straight from his heart. Nell couldn’t match it. She shared all the same memories but, ironically, she couldn’t express them as eloquently as he could. She also knew that he was only saying all these things for their cover and because Eric could probably only tell a lie if it were to directly save his own life. Someone would need to have a gun, cocked and aimed at his head for him to successfully lie. It was for this reason that Nell tried not to attach any feelings to what he was saying. 

Eric was also ignoring the fact that their history allowed for the viability of their relationship. Maybe ignoring wasn’t the right word but allowing them to play out their history meant that he didn’t have to carry a lie. It was easier to suspend his imagination into a state where their history meant they were together, rather than to go about constructing moments that didn’t exist.   
Why would he bother when already had so many at their disposal?  
Including when Eric told Nell about the moment he knew he was in love with her. There was not a single word of that speech that wasn’t true, he meant every word. Even though if someone asked him for the time he fell in love with Nell Jones he would not be able to tell you for sure. It could have been when she’d been taken captive, when she stopped him from incinerating the long pants, or when she took him home for Christmas, but it was that trivia night where he realised how far he’d fallen. Of course, he realised what this confession meant for Nell; it was him laying his heart out on the floor and hoping she wouldn’t shoot it. She focused on the case, ignoring how Eric’s confession had quietened her because she didn’t know how to say it back.   
She thought that maybe she did when she kissed Eric later that day because she was sure he knew it was genuine and not fuelled by their cover, but still then, she was uncertain if either of them truly understood the message. 

They found themselves both at the boatshed later that night and after Dave had left them together, the moment from earlier had drawn to a close long ago, they were left with many things to say but none of the words to say them.   
“I was thinking...” Eric started.  
“You were thinking. What?” Nell prompted after a moment.  
“I was thinking about Hetty’s metaphorical chessboard and how she always has her people in the right place at the right time. I mean for... everything.”  
“Hetty works in mysterious ways,” Nell answered.  
“But like for everything? Do you think she knew what would happen with Deeks and Kensi when she first assigned him to the team?”  
Nell considered her response for a moment, “Not even Hetty can make that kind of connection happen.”  
“No, but surely she saw it, and knew what would happen.” He paused, “didn’t she?”  
Nell sighed and gently grabbed Eric’s hand, “I think she sees a quality in a person. Whether it’s bravery or intelligence or sheer willpower, and she knows exactly how to harness it.”  
Eric smiled, “Yeah,” he said softly, “and exactly how to partner it.”  
“Exactly.”  
“I’d say she’s got it down to a Science.”   
They’d found themselves leaning in closer again.  
“You’d say that? Would you?”  
“Yes. I would.” He replied.  
“You’d say she got this down to a Science?” She asked with their faces centimetres from the other.  
Eric smiled, “Yeah. I would.”  
Their lips met gently, overlapping each other’s as they slipped together. Nell’s hand slid up Eric’s arm winding to rest on the back of his neck.   
He broke off suddenly, catching Nell slightly off guard, as she had to stop herself from following his lips, “You know,” he started, as though he’d had a thought, “chemistry is a science, so she did sort of get it down to a science.”  
Nell’s arms were still around his neck when she laughed slightly and rolled her eyes, the glint in them as they returned to hers, playful, “Just kiss me, Beale.”  
He caught her lips instantly, as they began to wager a war for dominance. Laughter escaping every now and again, especially when Nell pulled herself into Eric’s lap, made all the more awkward as she tried to keep their lips intact. Once she settled herself, Eric’s hands found themselves resting on her waist. Tracing small circles in the skin where her shirt rode up.   
Eric moved his lips once more off Nell’s, and shot a sceptical glance around the room, “Do you think she’s watching?”  
“No,” Nell remarked, “don’t be ridiculous.”  
“And know that I don’t mean that in a she would be watching us in a creepy kind of way,” Eric started to ramble in a panic, “more of a I don’t like the possibility of her seeing any of this.”  
Nell sighed, taking her hands off his neck, “You make a fair point,” She stood up and held her hand out to Eric, “come on.”  
He stood up hesitantly, “Where are we going.”  
“You’ll see,” she said grabbing his hand and walking out of the boatshed with purpose.

They ended up at her apartment that night. And maybe in the end it wasn’t the laws of physics they needed to follow, but simply that of chemistry. It was the laws relating to both feelings and elements that needed to finally bring them together. Sometimes it takes more than one force on earth to make a miracle happen. 

And that’s where they thought the story would end. It would just make way for their feelings to be put on ice as they crafted new excuses from old lies. Paving their way along as a blimp on the radar of life. How could they let themselves do that when they had a romance that was crafted in the stories of old? One of those timeless narratives that lived many years ago and that people said would have a chance to live again, like that of an epic poem. It had a chance to live again. 

That was never where their story was going to end, they’d been pulled together from other places in the country to find themselves here together and they had so many places to travel.

**Author's Note:**

> I have ideas for a part two so depending upon comments and feedback I'll see if they want to manifest into something else or not. I hope you enjoyed.   
> PS. it annoys me that there is more NellxCallen than NellxEric fiction on this site so here is an attempt to correct it.


End file.
